Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/141

 "he will waken. Then you must speak, so that he will desire to live."

Edith assented, appreciating the necessity for rousing the patient. She watched Mahmoud turning the bowl of brown liquid in his fingers that were so thin the wrinkled skin seemed stretched tight over the bones. She held her breath as he pushed open the lips of the unconscious man. Then, taking a strip of clean cotton from his girdle, he dipped it in the bowl, squeezing drops of the liquid through the set teeth. Undeniably, she thought, the man was skillful. She wondered faintly at the assurance of this wrinkled man of medicine who used remedies not in the pharmacopœia of European doctors; the conviction grew on her that Mahmoud, not Iskander, was master in Yakka Arik. The other native had left the room.

Mahmoud uttered a low exclamation as Donovan's teeth parted, and straightway fell to stroking the throat and eyelids of his patient Edith saw a flush come into Donovan's cheeks and perspiration start on his brow.

The eyelids flickered and Mahmoud drew back with a sign to Iskander. "Dono-van Khan sees you," whispered the latter to Edith. "Now you must speak to him."

Gazing full into the blue eyes, heavy with fever, that wavered as they sought her, the girl fumbled for words.

"John Donovan!" she said faintly. "John Donovan!"

The eyes of the sick man fixed upon hers and she thought his lips framed an exclamation. A sudden impulse drew the girl nearer to her patient

"Please," she breathed anxiously, "please hurry up and get well. I am going to nurse you."